Original // North of the Grey Wall // 08. Red Curtains
Genres: Fantasy, sci-fi, adventure
Rating: K+
Wordcount: 3901
Summary: A love story between a woman and a world. This chapter: the group heads towards the city of Rahad, and meets an interesting new person.
North of the Grey Wall
08. Red Curtain
After three more days, the woods began to end.
The canopy overhead opened, allowing more light in. The pervasive groundwater began to collect in channels, which joined together into streams, then rivers. The underbrush thinned into small shrubs and tall grasses, and the trees began to grow further apart.
Tuwa took a deep breath. "The air feels clearer," she says. "It's easier to breathe now."
"It's less humid here," Alva explained. "All that water in the air had to have been hard on your desert constitution. I suspect you'll be more comfortable from hereon out."
The ground was sloping gradually, steadily downwards to the east. Though they could still see only trees from here, there was a sense of space beyond them.
This cheered most of the group considerably. It was unsettling to them how they had begun to think of water from the sky as a bad thing, let alone potable water on the ground at their feet. They wondered if they had begun to take its presence for granted.
"I just caught myself thinking about what sort of names my friends would call me when I go home, knowing I complained about having too much water! Of all things! But... it doesn't matter, does it? Even if I come to forget about ever having lived without it, I'm never going home, so it doesn't matter."
"Uli," Tuwa said softly, touching his arm. "Are you homesick? You little fool, this is why I wanted you to stay home."
"No!" he protested, stepping away from her sympathetic hand. "I don't want to go home! It's just... I think it's finally sunk in that this isn't a training excursion, or a trading embassy. It isn't a two-way trip. There's no destination to go to, and... no home to return to, either. We're just going to keep going indefinitely."
Alva smiled and clapped her hands. "Congratulations! The journey will be much more fun for you, now that you've realized you're free."
"Free," Uli echoed wonderingly.
"That's right," she said. "You can go wherever you wish, stop wherever and whenever you like, and you owe allegiance to no one. The only tethers you have are the ones you have chosen for yourself." She looked meaningfully at Tuwa.
Tuwa frowned, not entirely happy with being referred to as a 'tether,' but unable to fully disagree. Uli had indeed tied himself to her, though she would not hold him if he wanted to leave.
Uli was also unhappy with it, it seemed, as he furrowed his brow and shook his head. "No, you don't understand. Tuwa isn't a tether. Not unless she is tied to the sky."
"I see," Alva said with a secret smile. "I apologize. I should not have presumed to understand the nature of your feelings after so short a time. Forgive me."
"You're right," Uli said coolly. "You shouldn't have. But you're forgiven. You weren't entirely wrong, after all."
Tuwa caught his hand and smiled gently at Alva. "We are very strange, I know," she said, "but I will tell you this: neither Uli nor I are burdens on each other."
To her surprise, Alva looked stricken. She turned away to hide her face, but Tuwa had already seen the beginnings of tears. "I'm sorry," Alva said into her hands. "I'm so terribly sorry."
Sighing, Tuwa left Uli and put an arm around her. Leaning into her, she whispered "One of these days, I will have the story out of you. But not right now, so please, don't cry. We're not angry."
"It's not that," Alva whispered. "I will tell you why. But not now. Not until... not now. I know it isn't fair of me to keep secrets when you trust me with yours so easily, but I simply can't yet. Please understand."
Catching her other shoulder, Tuwa pulled her into a full embrace and stroked her back. "We're friends, aren't we? I'll wait as long as you want."
Alva dropped her face onto Tuwa's shoulder and sobbed for a moment, then pulled herself together. "We are, and I promise I will tell you. I simply don't know how to explain while you have still seen so little of the world. It is a story full of things far outside the scope of what you have learned in your desert life."
Tuwa rankled at this a little, but recognized that Alva was likely right. Though she knew almost all there was to know about the world she had come from, she knew nothing about this one. Lamps had surprised her. Rain had shocked her. How could she think herself wise enough to understand Alva's story, which was so far beyond these most basic of things?
"I understand," she said honestly. "I said I would wait, and I will. You can believe me the first time when I say things, you know. I don't lie."
Alva laughed, and kissed her on the cheek. "I'm glad to have met you, Tuwa," she said. "We should keep going, though. The men are looking at us rather strangely."
"Women," Uli muttered under his breath with a wry grin.
Tuwa smacked him on the arm, unsmiling. "It isn't as if you haven't wept on my shoulder before," she reminded him, "and I doubt you never will again, so hush."
"You've wept on mine, too," he replied quietly, chastised.
"Pain belongs neither to women alone nor to men," she said, "but to all things which live. I'll thank you not to make snide remarks."
He sighed. "I'm sorry, Tuwa. I always seem to put my foot in my mouth at the worst moments."
"That you do," she agreed, but there was no bite in her tone. She slipped her arm through his elbow and walked in tandem with him. "But you know right away when the things you've said are wrong, and never hesitate to apologize. Often, too, it's something that needed very badly to be said. Not this time," she added with a stern look. "But often. Like that time with old Gamry."
"When I told him daughter was too clever to sit around listening to him gripe about her face, which was perfectly lovely anyway? Blind old bat."
Tuwa laughed. "The look on his face! And on hers... she would have said yes if you'd asked her to marry you in that moment, you know."
He shrugged, and offered her a charming smile. "I might have asked, if I hadn't already fallen in love with you."
"Oh, stop," she said, exasperated, but her face was rosy anyway. He really was too charming for his own good.
As they walked and talked and laughed about old stories, the sun of their sixth day on the road began to set.
~~
Just before midday on the eighth day, the forest failed at last.
Before them swept a wide vista of checkered green and golden fields, many of them neatly cultivated to grow some particular crop. Long hills rolled across the countryland, smooth and worn as old blankets. Crumbling stone walls lined the landscape, at some place only faint overgrown markers of where the edges of the fields should be.
"Welcome to Orhad," Alva said. "Get a good look. We won't be here for long-- I plan to continue northwest, cutting across this corner and ending up in Alonga. Orhad is very peaceful and gentle, quite a lovely place really, but quite boring. All it is is fields and rivers. Many people from your desert come to live here, however. It's an easier living than most places, and many of your people only seem to want that quiet, easy life. It works well for them."
"Many?" Tuwa echoed, thinking of Bena. But no, Alva had told her Bena had been dropped off on the other side of the river, very far from here. It was very unlikely that she had made her way all the over here, both because of the distance and because of her love of challenges. Bena would never have come of her own will to such an easy place as this.
Alva misunderstood. "If you would like to see some more of your people, we could detour to Rahad city," she offered. "It's not far from here. Relatively."
Tuwa shook her head. "No, it's all right. Though I don't want to hurry through this country. Tame as it is, I've never seen anything like it before and would like to know more. This is what all our gardeners spent all the years of their lives trying to do to the valley before Rumeriond. It's interesting to see what it would have looked like had they succeeded."
"Well, alright," Alva said with a shrug. "It isn't as if we're in a hurry to get anywhere. Though I do think you'll like Alonga much more."
"Perhaps I will," said Tuwa, "but I want to see everything, even if I don't like it. I want to know this world as I knew my own."
Alva smiled. "I understand. We should stop in Rahad in any case to resupply. And perhaps we can see about these tents. It doesn't rain quite as much in Orhad as it does in Neacala, but perhaps we can still find someone who knows about keeping unwanted water out of things like tents and bedrolls."
They could not keep the joy at the thought from their faces-- cracked lips and dry mouths were unpleasant things they were well-accustomed to and prepared to deal with, but soggy boots and the unique chill of being wet in the middle of an autumn night while trying to sleep were not.
"In any case, I'm hungry," Uli announced, slinging off his pack and sitting down on the damp grass.
The others, seeing no reason to protest this as their own bellies were rather hollow, shucked their own burdens and arrayed themselves on the green hillside under the sun.
The wind was cool, but not swift, and merely served to balance the warmth of the sun.
~~
Rahad, as it turned out, was on the same latitude as Acala, south of where they had emerged from the woods. It took them two days to reach it, but Tuwa was immediately glad upon catching sight of it that they had taken the time.
The Wall loomed tall and pale in the late evening eastern sun. The fields swept down into a valley, then ended at the edge of a vast lake. On the far side of the lake, buttressed against the Wall itself, rose a high tiered city of grey stone.
"Rahad," Alva said, quite unnecessarily.
It had no walls, but was clearly built on nine stone tiers, from the shore of the lake reaching high up the Wall. The tiers were somewhat neatly arranged, but blended into each other in occasional places where they were riddled with stairs and streets. All the buildings were built of dark wood, and were thatched with golden straw. Here and there among its cobblestones and green-gold banners hurried tiny human figures.
The only way to reach the city was by a long, shallow land-bridge, paved with grey stones. They aimed for it as they descended the long, shallow slope.
It occurred to Tuwa about halfway down how significant the lake was, as she saw how it pressed in frustration against the unmoved, impassive Wall.
"All that water," she said, shocked. Anger was bearing down on her like a storm. "If the Wall weren't there, all that water would--"
"Vanish into the sands as if it were never there," Alva interrupted. "I know what you're thinking, Tuwa, but you're wrong. Your lands were deserts already when we landed in them, and they are not still deserts only because of the Wall."
Tuwa glared at her. "Are you certain? Beyond any shadow of a doubt?"
"Yes," Alva answered without pause, meeting Tuwa's eyes without fear. "I'm sure. Please, I may keep my secrets, but I don't lie to you outright. Surenshi and Khazad are deserts because of the earth they are made of, their location, and the lack of rainfall is thanks to that. Please don't blame the Others for your misery. It is not their fault."
Verrill suddenly put a hand out, stopping their argument in its tracks. "Again," he said cryptically. "You feel it, yes?"
Alva tensed, and nodded. "I thought perhaps we'd lost him. Apparently not. I still think we should enter the city. Our tail obviously already knows where we're headed for today, so I don't see any point in laying a false trail."
"No, you're quite correct," Verrill agreed. "We should enter the city. I will double-back and wait by the gate, and see if I can apprehend our shadow in his tracks."
"Good plan. I'll leave it to you," said Alva. "Come on, we should go if we want to reach it early enough to find a place to stay. It isn't like Acala. Visitors are rare, so there are no inns."
"Do you know anyone here?" Tuwa asked, frowning. "Perhaps we should simply stay out here and camp."
Alva waved her hand. "No, no. I'm sure we can find some lodgings even without my connections. Sadly, most of the people I know live along the River. I'm sure you can guess why. I don't know anyone in Orhad, but I have been here before, and I'm sure we can figure something out."
Tuwa raised a dubious eyebrow. "Well, if you're sure. I have no wish to sleep on cobblestones, however, so I do hope you're quite sure."
"So little faith," Alva grumbled good-naturedly. "Come, come. I won't lead you astray, I promise."
Trusting, they followed her down the rest of the slope and onto the land bridge. The lake lapped at its edges, clear dark water full of weeds and minnows.
The gate was more a formality than a defensive measure, only having walls stretching from it for perhaps ten paces before giving way. Its thin black iron bars were wrought into simple curling shapes, only barely narrow enough to prevent anyone simply slipping through them. A child could do it easily.
"Why is it that Acala had such high walls, but this city does not?" Tuwa asked curiously.
"No visitors," Verrill said gruffly. "The people of Acala want to know who is coming in and who is leaving, so they can keep an eye on anyone suspicious. The people here are not accustomed to such traffic and thus have no need to monitor it."
"Quite right," Alva corroborated. "Be warned that we will likely not receive an entirely warm welcome. They won't know what to do with us, and that may make them cold. Be patient."
With that, they reached the gates, which were unsurprisingly not manned.
The closest person to them was a young woman, perhaps thirteen. Her long brown hair was piled atop her head in a thick braid, and her face was round and serious. Her snub nose and wide cheeks made her look even younger than she likely was. All told, she would have been a rather homely girl, if not for her eyes.
They were a wonder. Pale as the winter sky and enormous, they stared out of her plain face like grey-blue moons, unblinking. They were fringed with a forest of thick lashes the same colour as her hair, which made them seem even paler.
With them, she was almost beautiful.
"Who are you?" she asked solemnly. "I don't know you."
"Travelers," Alva told her. "We've come from Neacala, and we're very tired. Do you happen to know of anywhere we could rest?"
"No," the girl replied, too quickly, then squeezed her eyes shut, took a deep breath, and stood up straighter. "I mean, what are your intentions here? Have you come to trade with us? You aren't carrying much," she observed shrewdly.
"We aren't here to trade," said Tuwa. "We're... explorers, I suppose. We only wish to restock our supplies and continue on our way. We won't trouble your fair city for long."
She stared at them, openly weighing her options, her half-lidded eyes cool and calculating. At last, she sighed and put her hands on her hips in an oddly adult manner. "Well, I suppose it can't be helped. You won't find much welcome here, I'm afraid, but if that muscular fellow in the back there will fix my roof, I'll let you borrow my sewing room for the night."
"Your roof?" Tuwa echoed, confused. "I'm sorry, aren't you--"
"I am seventeen next month," the girl informed her shortly with a luminous glare. "I know my face and body bely that, but it is so. My house is my house, roof and all, and room within it is mine to give. What say you?"
"We say yes, of course," Uli put forward when none of the others could seem to make their mouths work. "That's very generous of you."
"You're not the one who'll be fixing the roof," Verrill pointed out good-naturedly.
"By the way, what's your name?" Alva asked.
The girl looked at her as if she'd almost forgotten. "Oh, yes. I'm Solenne. You can introduce yourselves later, I'm getting cold just standing here. Let's go to my house. Can any of you cook?"
The four travelers looked at each other expectantly, but found no takers.
"Honestly?" Alva said, surprised. "None of you can cook?"
"I technically can," Tuwa said, "but Uli says it always comes out tasting like dirt and bitterspice."
"I'm a prince," Uli said proudly. "Of course I can't."
"I'm a soldier," said Verrill. "I can keep myself alive. It doesn't have to taste good for that."
Solenne threw up her hands and stormed up the street before them. "For goodness' sake! Well, I suppose you're going to have to suffer, then, because I'm practically famous for my cooking. In all the wrong ways. I once sent my best friend's entire family to the healers when I made them soup and their skin turned purple."
The group turned slightly green.
"And there was the time when I made cookies and the mayor broke his tooth on one. I had to hide in my backyard for three days."
The city residents stopped and stared as Solenne led their odd little parade up the winding cobbled roads, often cutting through dark, uneven alley shortcuts. Whispers followed them.
"Oh, there was also the time I brought that big salad to the solstice celebration, and the next day half the town stayed home huddled over their latrines."
"All right!" Uli shouted, startling everyone. They turned to look at him where he had stopped and was blushing brightly. "I-- well, the thing is, I had this friend who worked in the kitchens, and... well. See. We spent a lot of time together, and I sort of--"
"Spit it out," Verrill barked.
Uli jumped. "I can cook!" he squeaked. "Don't tell anyone, please."
"Like who?" Tuwa asked drily. "Look where you are."
Solenne interrupted them by stopping dead in front of a small, dark two-story building. Red curtains were drawn across all the windows, which caught the last light of the setting sun from the east. Digging a large iron key out of her pocket, she let them into the shadowed foyer.
"Careful," she said. "I live alone, so I don't always pick needles or pins up right when I drop them. I don't have any extra slippers, though, sorry."
The group picked their way gingerly across the room towards the dim outline of a coatrack.
Something brushed Alva's leg, and she leaped back silently into a clearly recognizable combat position.
"Oh, also look out for Mina," Solenne said, a moment too late. "Don't worry, she's harmless. Hardly ever bites at all." As she spoke, she lit a great red-shaded lamp off to the right, in her living room.
The light revealed a small creature, perhaps the size of a large loaf of bread. It was thin and lithe and covered in very fine dark brown fur. Its ears were nearly half again its length, very slender and lying along its back. It had small, inquisitive black eyes on the sides of its wedge-like head, and a streak of white fur striping across its nose at an angle. It made a purling sound at them, then leaped across the room and onto Solenne's shoulder in three agile bounds. Solenne stroked it behind the ears affectionately. "She's my friend," she explained. "I met her in the fields one day and she followed me home."
"She's lovely," Alva said with a soft look in her eyes. "May I touch her?"
"Ask her yourself," Solenne said, proferring the shoulder with Mina on it.
Alva reached out tentatively, pausing inches from Mina's face. The little creature sniffed at it curiously, recoiled a moment, then jumped with shocking speed onto Alva's arm. She ran up to Alva's shoulder and peered into her face intently, sniffed at her ear, nibbled at her hair, then returned to Alva's shoulder and rumbled excitedly.
Solenne smiled. "She likes you well enough," she said, "but prefers me. Tough luck. Now, introduce yourselves. I won't have strangers in my house."
After they had done so, she pointed at Verrill and then at the door. "Shall I show you where the leak is before all the light is gone? I have no wish to spend another night emptying the bucket instead of sleeping. It's supposed to rain tonight, you know."
He bowed. "At your service, miss. Show the way."
"You!" she barked, pointing at Uli this time. "The kitchen's through there. My larder is stocked. Have dinner ready by the time your friend is finished."
"Yes, marm!" he said, snapping a neat salute and heading off in the direction she had pointed.
Alva and Tuwa looked at each other, then at Solenne. "Is there anything we should be doing?"
Solenne shrugged. "Dust, if you want. I don't particularly care so long as I have a whole roof and dinner on the table tonight." She left, shutting the door behind her with a sharp bang.
Tuwa frowned. "I don't like sitting idle while my friends work for our lodging," she said.
"I don't either," Alva confessed, "but honestly, what are we supposed to do? You're a healer, but no one's wounded. I'm a... well, whatever I am, it's of no use here. Shall we dust after all?"
"I think I'll offer Uli my help in the kitchen," Tuwa demurred. "I may have no talent for cooking itself, but I'm a neat hand with a knife."
"I suppose I'll do it by myself, then," Alva said gloomily, and trudged off into the living room alone.
Tuwa went into the kitchen, where Uli was rummaging through the cupboards with an unmistakable expression of horror.
"I thought she said her larder was stocked," he whispered. "This... it's stocked with empty bags and dust and nothing! If I can make something edible out of this, you will have to start calling me a hero."
"Idiot," Tuwa said affectionately. "Aren't those vegetables in the back, near the floor? Pass me some of those, I'll dice them up for you."
"Stew it is, then," he said, his tone just as gloomy as Alva's had been a moment ago. "I'll do my best."
Beyond the thick red curtains, the thin evening light slowly faded.
Bonus:
Tuwa, by my bestest best friend shiinabambi:
Rating: K+
Wordcount: 3901
Summary: A love story between a woman and a world. This chapter: the group heads towards the city of Rahad, and meets an interesting new person.
North of the Grey Wall
08. Red Curtain
After three more days, the woods began to end.
The canopy overhead opened, allowing more light in. The pervasive groundwater began to collect in channels, which joined together into streams, then rivers. The underbrush thinned into small shrubs and tall grasses, and the trees began to grow further apart.
Tuwa took a deep breath. "The air feels clearer," she says. "It's easier to breathe now."
"It's less humid here," Alva explained. "All that water in the air had to have been hard on your desert constitution. I suspect you'll be more comfortable from hereon out."
The ground was sloping gradually, steadily downwards to the east. Though they could still see only trees from here, there was a sense of space beyond them.
This cheered most of the group considerably. It was unsettling to them how they had begun to think of water from the sky as a bad thing, let alone potable water on the ground at their feet. They wondered if they had begun to take its presence for granted.
"I just caught myself thinking about what sort of names my friends would call me when I go home, knowing I complained about having too much water! Of all things! But... it doesn't matter, does it? Even if I come to forget about ever having lived without it, I'm never going home, so it doesn't matter."
"Uli," Tuwa said softly, touching his arm. "Are you homesick? You little fool, this is why I wanted you to stay home."
"No!" he protested, stepping away from her sympathetic hand. "I don't want to go home! It's just... I think it's finally sunk in that this isn't a training excursion, or a trading embassy. It isn't a two-way trip. There's no destination to go to, and... no home to return to, either. We're just going to keep going indefinitely."
Alva smiled and clapped her hands. "Congratulations! The journey will be much more fun for you, now that you've realized you're free."
"Free," Uli echoed wonderingly.
"That's right," she said. "You can go wherever you wish, stop wherever and whenever you like, and you owe allegiance to no one. The only tethers you have are the ones you have chosen for yourself." She looked meaningfully at Tuwa.
Tuwa frowned, not entirely happy with being referred to as a 'tether,' but unable to fully disagree. Uli had indeed tied himself to her, though she would not hold him if he wanted to leave.
Uli was also unhappy with it, it seemed, as he furrowed his brow and shook his head. "No, you don't understand. Tuwa isn't a tether. Not unless she is tied to the sky."
"I see," Alva said with a secret smile. "I apologize. I should not have presumed to understand the nature of your feelings after so short a time. Forgive me."
"You're right," Uli said coolly. "You shouldn't have. But you're forgiven. You weren't entirely wrong, after all."
Tuwa caught his hand and smiled gently at Alva. "We are very strange, I know," she said, "but I will tell you this: neither Uli nor I are burdens on each other."
To her surprise, Alva looked stricken. She turned away to hide her face, but Tuwa had already seen the beginnings of tears. "I'm sorry," Alva said into her hands. "I'm so terribly sorry."
Sighing, Tuwa left Uli and put an arm around her. Leaning into her, she whispered "One of these days, I will have the story out of you. But not right now, so please, don't cry. We're not angry."
"It's not that," Alva whispered. "I will tell you why. But not now. Not until... not now. I know it isn't fair of me to keep secrets when you trust me with yours so easily, but I simply can't yet. Please understand."
Catching her other shoulder, Tuwa pulled her into a full embrace and stroked her back. "We're friends, aren't we? I'll wait as long as you want."
Alva dropped her face onto Tuwa's shoulder and sobbed for a moment, then pulled herself together. "We are, and I promise I will tell you. I simply don't know how to explain while you have still seen so little of the world. It is a story full of things far outside the scope of what you have learned in your desert life."
Tuwa rankled at this a little, but recognized that Alva was likely right. Though she knew almost all there was to know about the world she had come from, she knew nothing about this one. Lamps had surprised her. Rain had shocked her. How could she think herself wise enough to understand Alva's story, which was so far beyond these most basic of things?
"I understand," she said honestly. "I said I would wait, and I will. You can believe me the first time when I say things, you know. I don't lie."
Alva laughed, and kissed her on the cheek. "I'm glad to have met you, Tuwa," she said. "We should keep going, though. The men are looking at us rather strangely."
"Women," Uli muttered under his breath with a wry grin.
Tuwa smacked him on the arm, unsmiling. "It isn't as if you haven't wept on my shoulder before," she reminded him, "and I doubt you never will again, so hush."
"You've wept on mine, too," he replied quietly, chastised.
"Pain belongs neither to women alone nor to men," she said, "but to all things which live. I'll thank you not to make snide remarks."
He sighed. "I'm sorry, Tuwa. I always seem to put my foot in my mouth at the worst moments."
"That you do," she agreed, but there was no bite in her tone. She slipped her arm through his elbow and walked in tandem with him. "But you know right away when the things you've said are wrong, and never hesitate to apologize. Often, too, it's something that needed very badly to be said. Not this time," she added with a stern look. "But often. Like that time with old Gamry."
"When I told him daughter was too clever to sit around listening to him gripe about her face, which was perfectly lovely anyway? Blind old bat."
Tuwa laughed. "The look on his face! And on hers... she would have said yes if you'd asked her to marry you in that moment, you know."
He shrugged, and offered her a charming smile. "I might have asked, if I hadn't already fallen in love with you."
"Oh, stop," she said, exasperated, but her face was rosy anyway. He really was too charming for his own good.
As they walked and talked and laughed about old stories, the sun of their sixth day on the road began to set.
~~
Just before midday on the eighth day, the forest failed at last.
Before them swept a wide vista of checkered green and golden fields, many of them neatly cultivated to grow some particular crop. Long hills rolled across the countryland, smooth and worn as old blankets. Crumbling stone walls lined the landscape, at some place only faint overgrown markers of where the edges of the fields should be.
"Welcome to Orhad," Alva said. "Get a good look. We won't be here for long-- I plan to continue northwest, cutting across this corner and ending up in Alonga. Orhad is very peaceful and gentle, quite a lovely place really, but quite boring. All it is is fields and rivers. Many people from your desert come to live here, however. It's an easier living than most places, and many of your people only seem to want that quiet, easy life. It works well for them."
"Many?" Tuwa echoed, thinking of Bena. But no, Alva had told her Bena had been dropped off on the other side of the river, very far from here. It was very unlikely that she had made her way all the over here, both because of the distance and because of her love of challenges. Bena would never have come of her own will to such an easy place as this.
Alva misunderstood. "If you would like to see some more of your people, we could detour to Rahad city," she offered. "It's not far from here. Relatively."
Tuwa shook her head. "No, it's all right. Though I don't want to hurry through this country. Tame as it is, I've never seen anything like it before and would like to know more. This is what all our gardeners spent all the years of their lives trying to do to the valley before Rumeriond. It's interesting to see what it would have looked like had they succeeded."
"Well, alright," Alva said with a shrug. "It isn't as if we're in a hurry to get anywhere. Though I do think you'll like Alonga much more."
"Perhaps I will," said Tuwa, "but I want to see everything, even if I don't like it. I want to know this world as I knew my own."
Alva smiled. "I understand. We should stop in Rahad in any case to resupply. And perhaps we can see about these tents. It doesn't rain quite as much in Orhad as it does in Neacala, but perhaps we can still find someone who knows about keeping unwanted water out of things like tents and bedrolls."
They could not keep the joy at the thought from their faces-- cracked lips and dry mouths were unpleasant things they were well-accustomed to and prepared to deal with, but soggy boots and the unique chill of being wet in the middle of an autumn night while trying to sleep were not.
"In any case, I'm hungry," Uli announced, slinging off his pack and sitting down on the damp grass.
The others, seeing no reason to protest this as their own bellies were rather hollow, shucked their own burdens and arrayed themselves on the green hillside under the sun.
The wind was cool, but not swift, and merely served to balance the warmth of the sun.
~~
Rahad, as it turned out, was on the same latitude as Acala, south of where they had emerged from the woods. It took them two days to reach it, but Tuwa was immediately glad upon catching sight of it that they had taken the time.
The Wall loomed tall and pale in the late evening eastern sun. The fields swept down into a valley, then ended at the edge of a vast lake. On the far side of the lake, buttressed against the Wall itself, rose a high tiered city of grey stone.
"Rahad," Alva said, quite unnecessarily.
It had no walls, but was clearly built on nine stone tiers, from the shore of the lake reaching high up the Wall. The tiers were somewhat neatly arranged, but blended into each other in occasional places where they were riddled with stairs and streets. All the buildings were built of dark wood, and were thatched with golden straw. Here and there among its cobblestones and green-gold banners hurried tiny human figures.
The only way to reach the city was by a long, shallow land-bridge, paved with grey stones. They aimed for it as they descended the long, shallow slope.
It occurred to Tuwa about halfway down how significant the lake was, as she saw how it pressed in frustration against the unmoved, impassive Wall.
"All that water," she said, shocked. Anger was bearing down on her like a storm. "If the Wall weren't there, all that water would--"
"Vanish into the sands as if it were never there," Alva interrupted. "I know what you're thinking, Tuwa, but you're wrong. Your lands were deserts already when we landed in them, and they are not still deserts only because of the Wall."
Tuwa glared at her. "Are you certain? Beyond any shadow of a doubt?"
"Yes," Alva answered without pause, meeting Tuwa's eyes without fear. "I'm sure. Please, I may keep my secrets, but I don't lie to you outright. Surenshi and Khazad are deserts because of the earth they are made of, their location, and the lack of rainfall is thanks to that. Please don't blame the Others for your misery. It is not their fault."
Verrill suddenly put a hand out, stopping their argument in its tracks. "Again," he said cryptically. "You feel it, yes?"
Alva tensed, and nodded. "I thought perhaps we'd lost him. Apparently not. I still think we should enter the city. Our tail obviously already knows where we're headed for today, so I don't see any point in laying a false trail."
"No, you're quite correct," Verrill agreed. "We should enter the city. I will double-back and wait by the gate, and see if I can apprehend our shadow in his tracks."
"Good plan. I'll leave it to you," said Alva. "Come on, we should go if we want to reach it early enough to find a place to stay. It isn't like Acala. Visitors are rare, so there are no inns."
"Do you know anyone here?" Tuwa asked, frowning. "Perhaps we should simply stay out here and camp."
Alva waved her hand. "No, no. I'm sure we can find some lodgings even without my connections. Sadly, most of the people I know live along the River. I'm sure you can guess why. I don't know anyone in Orhad, but I have been here before, and I'm sure we can figure something out."
Tuwa raised a dubious eyebrow. "Well, if you're sure. I have no wish to sleep on cobblestones, however, so I do hope you're quite sure."
"So little faith," Alva grumbled good-naturedly. "Come, come. I won't lead you astray, I promise."
Trusting, they followed her down the rest of the slope and onto the land bridge. The lake lapped at its edges, clear dark water full of weeds and minnows.
The gate was more a formality than a defensive measure, only having walls stretching from it for perhaps ten paces before giving way. Its thin black iron bars were wrought into simple curling shapes, only barely narrow enough to prevent anyone simply slipping through them. A child could do it easily.
"Why is it that Acala had such high walls, but this city does not?" Tuwa asked curiously.
"No visitors," Verrill said gruffly. "The people of Acala want to know who is coming in and who is leaving, so they can keep an eye on anyone suspicious. The people here are not accustomed to such traffic and thus have no need to monitor it."
"Quite right," Alva corroborated. "Be warned that we will likely not receive an entirely warm welcome. They won't know what to do with us, and that may make them cold. Be patient."
With that, they reached the gates, which were unsurprisingly not manned.
The closest person to them was a young woman, perhaps thirteen. Her long brown hair was piled atop her head in a thick braid, and her face was round and serious. Her snub nose and wide cheeks made her look even younger than she likely was. All told, she would have been a rather homely girl, if not for her eyes.
They were a wonder. Pale as the winter sky and enormous, they stared out of her plain face like grey-blue moons, unblinking. They were fringed with a forest of thick lashes the same colour as her hair, which made them seem even paler.
With them, she was almost beautiful.
"Who are you?" she asked solemnly. "I don't know you."
"Travelers," Alva told her. "We've come from Neacala, and we're very tired. Do you happen to know of anywhere we could rest?"
"No," the girl replied, too quickly, then squeezed her eyes shut, took a deep breath, and stood up straighter. "I mean, what are your intentions here? Have you come to trade with us? You aren't carrying much," she observed shrewdly.
"We aren't here to trade," said Tuwa. "We're... explorers, I suppose. We only wish to restock our supplies and continue on our way. We won't trouble your fair city for long."
She stared at them, openly weighing her options, her half-lidded eyes cool and calculating. At last, she sighed and put her hands on her hips in an oddly adult manner. "Well, I suppose it can't be helped. You won't find much welcome here, I'm afraid, but if that muscular fellow in the back there will fix my roof, I'll let you borrow my sewing room for the night."
"Your roof?" Tuwa echoed, confused. "I'm sorry, aren't you--"
"I am seventeen next month," the girl informed her shortly with a luminous glare. "I know my face and body bely that, but it is so. My house is my house, roof and all, and room within it is mine to give. What say you?"
"We say yes, of course," Uli put forward when none of the others could seem to make their mouths work. "That's very generous of you."
"You're not the one who'll be fixing the roof," Verrill pointed out good-naturedly.
"By the way, what's your name?" Alva asked.
The girl looked at her as if she'd almost forgotten. "Oh, yes. I'm Solenne. You can introduce yourselves later, I'm getting cold just standing here. Let's go to my house. Can any of you cook?"
The four travelers looked at each other expectantly, but found no takers.
"Honestly?" Alva said, surprised. "None of you can cook?"
"I technically can," Tuwa said, "but Uli says it always comes out tasting like dirt and bitterspice."
"I'm a prince," Uli said proudly. "Of course I can't."
"I'm a soldier," said Verrill. "I can keep myself alive. It doesn't have to taste good for that."
Solenne threw up her hands and stormed up the street before them. "For goodness' sake! Well, I suppose you're going to have to suffer, then, because I'm practically famous for my cooking. In all the wrong ways. I once sent my best friend's entire family to the healers when I made them soup and their skin turned purple."
The group turned slightly green.
"And there was the time when I made cookies and the mayor broke his tooth on one. I had to hide in my backyard for three days."
The city residents stopped and stared as Solenne led their odd little parade up the winding cobbled roads, often cutting through dark, uneven alley shortcuts. Whispers followed them.
"Oh, there was also the time I brought that big salad to the solstice celebration, and the next day half the town stayed home huddled over their latrines."
"All right!" Uli shouted, startling everyone. They turned to look at him where he had stopped and was blushing brightly. "I-- well, the thing is, I had this friend who worked in the kitchens, and... well. See. We spent a lot of time together, and I sort of--"
"Spit it out," Verrill barked.
Uli jumped. "I can cook!" he squeaked. "Don't tell anyone, please."
"Like who?" Tuwa asked drily. "Look where you are."
Solenne interrupted them by stopping dead in front of a small, dark two-story building. Red curtains were drawn across all the windows, which caught the last light of the setting sun from the east. Digging a large iron key out of her pocket, she let them into the shadowed foyer.
"Careful," she said. "I live alone, so I don't always pick needles or pins up right when I drop them. I don't have any extra slippers, though, sorry."
The group picked their way gingerly across the room towards the dim outline of a coatrack.
Something brushed Alva's leg, and she leaped back silently into a clearly recognizable combat position.
"Oh, also look out for Mina," Solenne said, a moment too late. "Don't worry, she's harmless. Hardly ever bites at all." As she spoke, she lit a great red-shaded lamp off to the right, in her living room.
The light revealed a small creature, perhaps the size of a large loaf of bread. It was thin and lithe and covered in very fine dark brown fur. Its ears were nearly half again its length, very slender and lying along its back. It had small, inquisitive black eyes on the sides of its wedge-like head, and a streak of white fur striping across its nose at an angle. It made a purling sound at them, then leaped across the room and onto Solenne's shoulder in three agile bounds. Solenne stroked it behind the ears affectionately. "She's my friend," she explained. "I met her in the fields one day and she followed me home."
"She's lovely," Alva said with a soft look in her eyes. "May I touch her?"
"Ask her yourself," Solenne said, proferring the shoulder with Mina on it.
Alva reached out tentatively, pausing inches from Mina's face. The little creature sniffed at it curiously, recoiled a moment, then jumped with shocking speed onto Alva's arm. She ran up to Alva's shoulder and peered into her face intently, sniffed at her ear, nibbled at her hair, then returned to Alva's shoulder and rumbled excitedly.
Solenne smiled. "She likes you well enough," she said, "but prefers me. Tough luck. Now, introduce yourselves. I won't have strangers in my house."
After they had done so, she pointed at Verrill and then at the door. "Shall I show you where the leak is before all the light is gone? I have no wish to spend another night emptying the bucket instead of sleeping. It's supposed to rain tonight, you know."
He bowed. "At your service, miss. Show the way."
"You!" she barked, pointing at Uli this time. "The kitchen's through there. My larder is stocked. Have dinner ready by the time your friend is finished."
"Yes, marm!" he said, snapping a neat salute and heading off in the direction she had pointed.
Alva and Tuwa looked at each other, then at Solenne. "Is there anything we should be doing?"
Solenne shrugged. "Dust, if you want. I don't particularly care so long as I have a whole roof and dinner on the table tonight." She left, shutting the door behind her with a sharp bang.
Tuwa frowned. "I don't like sitting idle while my friends work for our lodging," she said.
"I don't either," Alva confessed, "but honestly, what are we supposed to do? You're a healer, but no one's wounded. I'm a... well, whatever I am, it's of no use here. Shall we dust after all?"
"I think I'll offer Uli my help in the kitchen," Tuwa demurred. "I may have no talent for cooking itself, but I'm a neat hand with a knife."
"I suppose I'll do it by myself, then," Alva said gloomily, and trudged off into the living room alone.
Tuwa went into the kitchen, where Uli was rummaging through the cupboards with an unmistakable expression of horror.
"I thought she said her larder was stocked," he whispered. "This... it's stocked with empty bags and dust and nothing! If I can make something edible out of this, you will have to start calling me a hero."
"Idiot," Tuwa said affectionately. "Aren't those vegetables in the back, near the floor? Pass me some of those, I'll dice them up for you."
"Stew it is, then," he said, his tone just as gloomy as Alva's had been a moment ago. "I'll do my best."
Beyond the thick red curtains, the thin evening light slowly faded.
Bonus:
Tuwa, by my bestest best friend shiinabambi: